This is a online journal of a scoutmaster's thoughts on over 30 years as a Boy Scout Leader.

Archive for the ‘recruitement’ Category

It has been awhile since Buttons, the radical Boy Scout, has shown up for anything. He has been laying low and taking it easy. Even his Facebook page and Twitter accounts were not seeing much action. But this month, things changed a bit and he was active once again. He has been busy assisting with display for the local School Night To Join Scouting, or as the councils in the state of Minnesota called it, Rocket Into Scouting! Here are a few pictures of Buttons hard at work putting that display together. He was also in attendance during the evening with his display, greeting the boys into the grand world of Cub Scouting.

As the Cub Scout program year came to a close last May our cubmaster stepped down from his position. His youngest son has graduated out of the pack. That left the pack without a cubmaster. It also left the pack without an active pack committee. Everyone who was registered as a committee member no longer had sons as members of the pack. The pack had no leadership in place for this fall, and no one had done anything to try to take care of that problem over the summer.

I was a member of the pack committee, but it was pretty much in name only. I was a name on the roster because a third person was needed to keep a pack committee formed. The committee rarely, if ever met. I did try to hold two committee members over my tenure but not much came of them. The cubmaster pretty much did things on his own, but he kept the pack alive.

In August, as I saw School Night to Join Scouting coming closer on the calendar, I finally decided that something should be done to try to get some leadership in place before the new boys and parents showed up to join the Cub Scout pack. I sent out an email to a small list of Cub Scout parents I was able to get ahold of, asking them to come to a parents meeting to start preparing for a new year. I received four replies. Two said they would attend, and the other two stated they would not be participating in Scouting this fall. I did not hear anything from the others.

The night of the meeting arrived. I held onto hope that at least three people would attend. One parent did call to say they were running late. Other than that, no one showed up. At seven thirty I was still the only one. I called the parent back to tell her she should not bother to come to the meeting. At 7:45, one father did arrive. He and I had our meeting times mixed up. The two of us did agree to try another parent meeting in two weeks.

The second meeting was held on Tuesday, September 9. Two mothers and one father attended that meeting. My goal was to get the beginnings of a committee formed and plan a program agenda through December. By the end of the meeting we had a new committee formed (with a chairperson, treasurer, and advancement person), and a preliminary program agenda through next May. One parent had someone in mind to ask about being a cubmaster. Another parent thought there might be one more parent to join the newly formed committee, which by Wednesday evening the committee had another member.

I am very pleased that we have this much in place for Thursday night’s School Night. I know I will be heading up the meeting that night but I do not really mind. I want the pack to grow and do well. After all, these are the boys who will hopefully be graduating into the Boy Scout troop in a few years.

For the last 15 or 20 years I have been collecting videos of Scouting commercials and promotional films. I have a few dozen of them. Some of them are very good. Several not so much. A few are just plain weird. But they are interesting to watch.

At tonight’s district roundtable I plan to give away some dvd’s I created featuring many of these videos, along with a couple old training videos. I plan on giving two of these discs to the Cub Scout roundtable. The other six I will give away to lucky winners at the Boy Scout roundtable. I am also hoping to have a projection screen set up during the roundtable to show a few select videos since promoting Scouting within your home community is a theme for the evening.

You see these “Keep Calm and …” signs all over the internet. Most of the time they are okay. Sometimes they are annoying. But this one I thought was just right for this blog, especially since many councils, packs, and troops are in the midst of their recruitment drives.

I saw this new (?) poster online today to promote Cub Scouting. I thought it was fantastic! With all the hype this past year about the Dark Knight (Batman) and the Avengers, and the new Superman movie due out soon, I think it would work well with today’s youth.

From the look of the writing on the bottom it looks like it is a B.S.A. poster, but I could not find it on the Scouting.org website. Has anyone used this poster this fall? How has the response been?

I found this promotional video on Youtube. It is time to “Be A Scout”. Be a Cub Scout. Be a Boy Scout. Be a Venturer. Serve your community. Learn new things. And just have fun. This video was posted to Youtube by BSA100Years in July 2011.

Boy Scout Troop 68 and Cub Scout Pack 68 held an open house on Monday, April 18, at St. Mary’s School gym. Flyers were sent to the schools. Posters were hung around town. An article was printed in the newspaper. We were set to welcome new boys into the Scouting program.

I had set up three tables of troop pictures and memorabilia. The Cub Pack had set up one table. The Boy Scouts had four activities planned for new boys to play. We had a fire truck in the parking lot. Most of the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts were in attendance. Even the district executive had come to our open house. All we needed was some new boys and families.

Unfortunately, no one showed up. No new boys. No new parents. No new families. The only people who stopped by was a gentleman who was the troop’s committee chairman in the early 1980′s, and his wife. Needless to say, I was very disappointed. I was hoping to see at least a few Cub Scout age boys stop by. But nope. No one. Notta. Zilch.

It was time for plan B. We sent the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts out to the parking lot to check out the fire department’s ladder truck. The boys had a great time climbing on it, sitting in it, and looking over the equipment. We were able to get some great photos and video (which I hope to post to the Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast.)

By 7:20 we realized that no one was probably going to show up so I had the Cub Scouts go through the four activities planned by the Boy Scouts. The Cub Scouts had fun, and the Boy Scouts had a chance to work with and get to know the younger boys. I guess you could say it was a win/win situation for both groups. The Cub Pack committee used the time to meet and plan for this summer’s activities. The district executive walked around with my camera taking pictures while I used my iPod to record video of the stations. Parents took some time to look through the troop photo albums I had brought along.

Even though we did not get any new boys join the pack or troop we were able to fun evening for the boys. I guess you could call that our silver lining. But I am still very disappointed with the turnout.

I am beginning to panic. Just a little. Boy Scout Troop 68, along with Cub Scout Pack 68 of Melrose, are planning to hold a Scouting Open House on Monday, April 18th. That is only a little over a week away! And hardly anything has been done yet. We are running out of time to promote this event.

The council has printed flyers to hand out to the public elementary school students and those at St. Mary’s elementary school. Our committee chairperson picked those up today and I have already delivered them to our committee member who teaches at St. Mary’s School. She will also get the flyers to the public school.

We have ten 16″ x 20″ posters from the council to place around town. (See the picture.) One will be going to each elementary school. Our chairperson has taken a few to bring to Burger King, Dairy Queen, and the two convenience stores in town. That leaves four posters to try to place in windows of Main Street businesses. Hopefully, we will find good spots for them.

The banks and credit union will allow us to place table displays in their lobbies. The problem is finding time and people to set them up. I do not know if anyone has asked them yet to post a notice on their electronic marquees. We did not plan very well at the last committee committee meeting to decide who would be in charge of doing the things that need to be done.

Our local newspaper, the Melrose Beacon, is being very supportive. In next week’s edition they will be printing an article about the 100th anniversary of the first Boy Scout Troops formed in Melrose. I have proofread a rough draft of the article and I like it. They have contacted some of the former committee members and a couple troop alumni about their Scouting experiences. The writer, Herman, asked a few of us to meet him at the local historical museum for some pictures next to the Scouting display. He also asked for current pictures of the Cub Scout Pack and the Boy Scout Troop. He was at Dakota’s Eagle court of honor last Saturday so I wonder if that article will also be in this next edition.

We want to get yard signs set up around town. I have kept the signs from several years ago. There are two kinds from two different years. It would be great to find ten good yards in town, preferably on Main Street and a couple other well traveling streets.

On the day of the event, the troop and pack will each have a table of information. The pack will have one activity for Cub Scout age boys. The troop is planning four activities for possible new Boy Scouts, but the activities will also be Cub Scout friendly. Those activities will be knot tying (square knot, two half hitches, taut line hitch), frisbee golf, flag and Pledge knowledge, and the human knot untying. We are hoping to be able to tell any Boy Scout age boys that they will already have a few requirements done for awards if they complete these stations.

What have you done for your open house? What was successful, or not successful? This is new to us so we could use your ideas.